Installing Magento 2 software could be challenging.

You can install Magento 2 with this super simplified step by step guide.

Note: For Magento 2.4 Installation with Command Line Method, check this guide.

How to Install Magento 2?

I’ve divided the installation into 3 phases:

1. Requirements,
2. Installation, and
3. Post-installation

1. Requirements

• You’re not on shared hosting and have your own Magento server.
• Your OS is either Ubuntu or CentOS.
• Everything is on one host (web server, database)
• Install via composer create-project.
• You’re installing to the magento2 subdirectory under your web server’s docroot (path: /var/www/html/magento)

Read more about Magento Requirements.

2. Installation

Now that you have ensured all the requirements, here’s how you can install Magento 2 and get your hands on the powerful Magento software:

Method to do Magento 2 Installation:

• Composer,
• GitHub,
• Command Line or
• Web Setup Wizard

2.1. Install Magento 2 via Composer

Composer: A tool for dependency management in PHP.

Get the composer software by following these commands:

cd 
composer create-project --repository-url=https://repo.magento.com/ magento/project-community-edition magento2

Note: In the installation, Magento core code is also stored under /vendor directory and updating is possible through Magento admin.

Step 1: Get Authentication Keys

You need authentication keys to get started which you can get by:

• Login to Magento account > Go to “My Access Keys” > Enter “Name” and generate a new set of keys.
• Know more about authentication keys here.

Enter this command:

composer create-project --repository-url=https://repo.magento.com/magento/project-community-edition

Your public key is the username and private key is password.

Step 2: Go to Setup Wizard > Click on Install

Step 3: To install sample data:

Go to your Magento 2 root directory via terminal > run following commands

php bin/magento sampledata:deploy
php bin/magento setup:upgrade

This will update your composer.json file and install sample data. If you see “Please re-run Magento compile command”, enter the following command:

php bin/magento setup:di:compile

2.2. Install via GitHub

1. Clone Magento repo from here or simply download it.

2. Create empty directory and run:

git clone git@github.com:magento/magento2.git.

3. After deploying, run:

composer install

4. Now after installing Magento 2, the setup will look like:

php -f bin/magento setup:install -base-url =https://m2.loc/2.07/github/
--backend-frontname=admin
--db-host=localhost --db-name=m2git --db-user=root --db-password= xyz
--admin-firstname=Magento
--admin-lastname=User --admin-email=youremail@email.com --admin-user=admin
--admin-password=admin123
--language=en_US --currency=USD --timezone=India/Delhi -use-rewrites=1

Note: change your base-url, db-name, db-password, admin-email, admin-password to match the setup.

To install sample data:

1. Run git clone git@github.com:magento/magento2-sample-data.git in your web root.

2. Go to the cloned directory and execute the following command to create symlinks to your M2 installation:

php -f dev/tools/build-sample-data.php -- --ce-source=”your Magento CE install dir”

For ownership and permissions (on Linux), follow these commands:

chown -R :your web server group name
find . -type d -exec chmod g+ws {} ;

3. To clear cache or static files, follow:

rm -rf cache/* page_cache/* generation/*

4. For installing sample data, follow these commands:

php bin/magento setup:upgrade
php bin/magento setup:di:compile

After this, you’ll have sample data installed.

2.3. Install Magento 2 via Command line

Follow these commands to install Magento 2 via command line:

php /var/www/html/magento2/bin/magento setup:install --base-url=https://192.0.2.5/magento2/ 
--db-host=localhost --db-name=magento --db-user=magento --db-password=magento 
--admin-firstname=Magento --admin-lastname=User --admin-email=user@example.com 
--admin-user=admin --admin-password=admin123 --language=en_US 
--currency=USD --timezone=America/Chicago --use-rewrites=1

Wherein,

• Database name is Magento
• Username and password are both Magento
• Properties of Magento administrator:
• First name is Magento and the last name is User
• Username is Admin and password is admin@123
• E-mail address is magento@example.com
• Default language is en_US (US English)
• Currency is USD by default.
• Default time zone is India (Delhi)

Note: Magento software will be installed in the /var/www/html/magento2 directory and your storefront URL will be: https://103.90.240.1/magento2/

Replace 103.90.240.1 with your IP address

2.4. Install Magento 2 using Web Setup Wizard

Note: This method has been removed from Magento 2.4 version.

Follow these steps to run the Web Setup Wizard:

1. Open this URL in your browser: https://103.90.240.1/magento2/setup

Note: The Magento software will be installed in the magento2 directory relative to the web server docroot and your storefront URL will be https://103.90.240.1/magento2/

Replace 103.90.240.1 with your IP address.

2. At the welcome page > Agree and Setup Magento

3. Click Start Readiness check to verify your system is ready to install Magento 2 software.

4. Click “Next” if readiness check passes.

5. Check Readiness check issues if it fails.

6. “Add a Database” to set up your Magento database.

7. With web configuration, you can enter the storefront and Magento Admin URLs.

8. You can enter a default store currency, language, and time zone by clicking on “Customize Your Store”.

9. Create a “Admin Account” to set up a Magento administrator and perform all the required actions.

10. To install, click on “Install Now”.

And there you go!

3. Post Installation: Is Magento 2 Installed Correctly?

3.1 Verifying the Magento 2 Storefront

If you’ve installed Magento 2 for URL is https://www.yourwebsitename.com, then open this in a browser. If you see the following storefront page, the installation was successful.

3.2 Verifying the Magento Admin

• Go to the Magento in a web browser.

For example, https://www.yourwebsitename.com/ admin_magento2 where https://www.yourwebsitename.com/ is your Magento installation base URL and the Admin URI is admin_magento2.

• Log in as a Magento Admin.

You see the following page, it means the Magento 2 is installed successfully.

• If there’s some problem with graphics, check here.
• If you get a 404 error or similar error, check for solutions here.

Wrapping Up

In this simplified guide, I tried to keep every step as simple as possible. So you can easily install Magento 2 on your server.

However, if there is any doubt at any steps, leave it in comment box.

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